Louise Glück wrote:I use the word "writer" deliberately. "Poet" must be used cautiously; it names an aspiration, not an occupation. In other words: not a noun for a passport.

It is very strange to want so much what cannot be achieved in life. The high jumper knows, at the instant after performance, how high he has been; his achievement can be measured both immediately and with precision. But for those of us attempting dialogue with the great dead, it isn't a matter of waiting: the judgment we wait for is made by the unborn; we can never, in our lifetimes, know it.

What he was going for and what he got are two different things. Despite what you may have learned in high school, works of art aren't about messages or themes or any such rubbish.

While yeah this may well be the case, why is that? Because there's no point in putting messages or themes in things because A:no one cares or B:no one is going to notice or C:your audience is too dumb to have a clue what the fuck you're saying?

TheRaven7 wrote:I was kind of implying that I realized I was wrong in that thread. Those were posts of indignant self-righteous angst.

I'm not implying that your views are the same. I'm saying that you had a simplistic notion of what's at stake in the concept of a symbol then, and you still do. Depending on your level of interest and schedule, you should take some classes.

TheRaven7 wrote:If I'm reading that excerpt correctly (which there is a high possibility that I'm not), people are mistaking symbols for connections between what is there and what it means instead of connections between what is there and what isn't there. It also says that allegories are works of art that are specifically chosen to convey meaning, but as art they can be expressed distinctly from the chosen concept.

By "start here" I meant "spend a year with this." Benjamin is notoriously thick, especially in the Trauerspiel book.

TheRaven7 wrote:If this is correct, then I would say that the high school curriculum is a result of such fallacy and not necessarily justification to teach students material they don't understand.

What? On an unrelated note: high school is the result of politics. Quantification -> standardized testing -> no critical thinking. Or it could be a remnant of our Christian origins. Catechism and critical thinking have always been mortal enemies.

Qaenyin The Angelblade wrote:While yeah this may well be the case, why is that? Because there's no point in putting messages or themes in things because A:no one cares or B:no one is going to notice or C:your audience is too dumb to have a clue what the fuck you're saying?

Because art is not something that is asserted to you. It's something that happens to you.

Art is about expression and connection, creating awareness like sand painted mandalas that are swept away as soon as the wind changes. And it's fucking gorgeous to live in that place, even for a single moment that quickly fades past recall. The point of complexity is solely to make things beautiful in another fashion, even if it's the beauty of something not yet knowable. The art of DNA and galactic superstructures are nearly untouchable and yet they can mirror one another. So it is with the word, the form and the art of art.

In other news I've been reading Denise Levertov and last night I came up with an idea for a supercriminal who kidnaps the idea of children. Fun times in Melli-Land.

a particle is a thing in itself. a wave is a disturbance in something else. waves themselves are probably not disturbed.

Cassiel wrote:What? On an unrelated note: high school is the result of politics. Quantification -> standardized testing -> no critical thinking. Or it could be a remnant of our Christian origins. Catechism and critical thinking have always been mortal enemies.

Or it's the combined efforts of Christian modes and quantification.

On one hand, you have a Christian tradition that emphasizes the concept of a singular existence. There is one God, you are in possession of one body and one life, there is only one Heaven, you only get one shot. Christianity in a lot of ways is a very isolationist culture. However, it also breaks things down into really basic figures. A strict moral code leaves no room for shades of gray and possesses a structure that can hypothetically provide an answer for every question posed to it; everything that can't be explained or answered should be taken on the concept of faith. Additionally, Christianity frowns on curious inquiry, frowning on those who would challenge the moral authority of its code and doing everything in its power to thwart serious, open discussion of any aspect. If we thingify it, from an amorphous idea to a solid, thinking beast, it becomes a creature that suppresses free thought and encourages its followers to submit blindly to the portfolio of information it hands out. I don't think I need to point out how instrumental Christian thought has been in the evolution (devolution?) of America. I don't want to speak for other countries, Western or non, because I'm not entirely familiar with the education systems elsewhere.

On the other hand, there is the fairly recent rise of the notion that happiness is quantifiable and directly related to income. I want to venture on a limb and say that this concept was born with the birth of the bourgeouis class, grew up in the Industrial Revolutions and really took hold in America in the post-Depression/WWII era. Suddenly, happiness was a math problem; x plus y equals happiness. This is where Life as an Equation really took hold. Standardized testing is only one of the results of this, and I totally lost my train of thought because a friend is offering to split airfare with me to get me out to a Tiesto concert. So BASICALLY

Teaching kids to think for themselves, and to think critically, is dangerous to the institutions that run this country and work contrarily to the systems we've developed for managing our society. Good god, people thinking for themselves in an educated, intelligent fashion would be -awful-.

See? That shit happens when you teach women critical thinking.Instead of cooking food they start brewing up questions and broiling blames.And for what?! Can you eat that!? Well, I for one can't!!I know, I know, you're hungry too.. Let that teach you a lesson, boys!

Nein, nein, nein! Do not be so little! When I say answer it, I mean respond to it, to Them.